In Haiti, where the government lacked the tools to safeguard civilians, gang violence claimed the lives of more than 600 people last month, the UN remarked.
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that “Every report I get from Haiti underlines the scale of the suffering and rams home the message that Haitians need urgent support and they need it now.”
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He reiterated his request that a specialized military force be sent from the international community to assist Haiti’s police and government in re-establishing order.
Since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July 2021, the Caribbean country—the poorest in the Americas—has been engulfed in a political and economic catastrophe.
The majority of Port-au-Prince’s city center is currently governed by rival gangs.
The UN stated that violence was “becoming more extreme and more frequent (and) spreading relentlessly as gangs seek to extend their control” in its quarterly report for January to March, which was recently published.
Turk’s office reported that “in the month of April alone, more than 600 people were killed in a new wave of extreme violence that hit several districts across the capital,” noting that previously deemed safe places were suddenly affected.
“This follows the killing of at least 846 people in the first three months of 2023, in addition to 393 injured and 395 kidnapped during that period –- a 28 percent increase in violence on the previous quarter.”
According to the article, gangs were “firing into homes” and shooting “indiscriminately” at bystanders on the street with snipers, and individuals were “being burned alive on public transport.”
Turk said that because the Haitian government lacked “the capacity to respond,” citizens were organizing vigilante organizations to take on the gangs.
As a result, “mob killings and lynchings of alleged gang members” have increased. There were at least 164 such homicides reported in April alone.
Turk, who previously stated that Haiti was “dangling over an abyss,” claimed that this would only serve to exacerbate the spiral of violence.
The high commissioner noted, “We must not forget that extreme poverty and the lack of basic services lie at the root of the current violence and of the gangs’ power over communities.”
Turk added, “The government, with support from the international community, must do its utmost to comply with its obligation to provide people with regular and unimpeded access to clean water, food, health, and shelter.”
